Player1, I have 1 gate from a Fireball II I've had in my parts stash. PM me your address and I'll mail it out to you. I hope that will help, I don't need it anymore.

Very nice! It looks clearcoated. Is it?

You might want to take a look at the rubbers. The posts in between the red targets on the far left of the playfield seem to have one large rubber around all of them. In the factory configuration, all posts in this area have 1 seperate rubber. And remember to add a rubber behind the middle drop targets... The plastic above those targets is hard to come by!

I could sure use a scan of that odins lair plastic, mine was broke and someone tried to melt the bits together with a soldering iron. Unless anyone has a spare?

Wow!!! that turned out nice. I'm glad it went to a good home and was used. Great job!!!

In multiball it's all about getting specials. Once you release both captured balls, you hafta get the three upper standups once, and then each time after that they score special. So if yer into seeing how many free games you can get, set the dips for special = free game. If yer into points, set special = points.

From the Instruction Card: "Top targets light to score special after both captive balls are ejected and targets are made again."

Just finished restoring one, repainted and clear coated the cabinet artwork, all new boards, all new coils, clear coated playfield, Comet leds, yellow superbands and a bunch of other Marco goodies. It had a 1/2 sheet of mylar on it and desperately needed some pf love!

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I have a real nice backglass if anyone is interested, PM me

I wish someone would make new plastics for this game. Mine are ok, but the one above the upper flipper is broken. That top flipper is too strong for targets that close. Maybe I'll try a smaller flipper there and or reduce it's strength somehow. Any thoughts??

Nice clearcoat! I like what you did there with those translucent red flippers and orange superbands!

yep mine is broken too. how about just a batch of that plastic. Anyone up for scanning & making?

also you could put a smaller flipper in which would also make it harder.

Yes, that middle plastic covering the Fireball bonus could use replacing on mine too. A full replacement set would probably sell well. Can't believe this game doesn't get more attention. Some people complain it's a letdown of sorts compared to the original. I like it.

Hey guys I'm on my husband's pinside.
We also have a fireball 2. We got ours for $260. It was in ruff shape but my husband got all the bugs worked out and I repainted it.

The only thing I cant figure out is the fireball bonus. It worked at first and now it's not working at all. I checked the wiring. The settings. It doesn't look bad but I'm not sure whats going on with it.

Under the playfield can anyone tell me the correct fuse that's need to be under there? Right now there is a 1.5, but I read something from bally saying it needs to be a 3a.

Can you guys help me?

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I believe that plastic thing is actually connected to a switch. It counts every time the ball goes across.

Just signed up to this site. Been lurking on and off for a month or three.

I will have a longer write-up in my story at a date coming soon, but wanted to post here that I just completed a complete playfield swap for this game. It went rather smoothly, but now am busy working some board issues.

Fireball II is my first purchased pinball game.

Welcome to the club! Great machine to start off with

Thank you. I am working some weird board issues. I'm pretty sure the swap is not related to the problems I am experiencing. Just finished a rebuild of the Squawk & Talk board. That was fun

Replaced the Lamp and Auxiliary Lamp Driver boards with new boards from Alltek. Hasn't solved all of my problems, but I seem to be making headway. Had to replace a couple of transistors on the Solenoid Driver board. I am probably going to replace that with the newer one from Alltek. These boards are the originals included in the game and they held up remarkably well considering the abuse I believe this game saw during it's life.

I will probably work on my soldering techniques with the old boards as I believe they are still quite servicable. Good practice and good experience.

The original MPU was shot when I purchased the game. I have a Tom Callahan Mutha Board in right now, and I'm not sure that some of the problems I am experiencing are not related to that, but more on that at another date. I brought it back to life in the late winter/early spring of 2007 but then we bought our house and it languished for a long time. Stored in the house in a corner in a good environment.

I got the replacement playfield about this same time, from a guy in France for $600. I also found another junked playfield with some of the plastic and everything else underneath intact. It aided me greatly during the swap.

I am going to wax this board regularly. Both playfields (the original and the spare parts field) were in horrible shape. Not sure what Bally did not do at the time this game was manufactured to enhance the survivability of this game.

Oh well.

I plan on building a nice cedar frame around the original playfield, eventually hanging it on the wall near the refurbished machine. I love this game, mainly because I've brought it back to life twice, even if it's still somewhat quirky getting it to prime operating condition.

What did you clear coat it with? Did you wax it on, or did you spray?

There is no connection to the plastic piece that I have ever seen. I am only going by two old boards that I utilized for a recent playfield swap. Four screws hold it in place and there is a paper type gasket that lies between the playfield wood and the plastic piece.

Unless I just happened to get two old boards that were somehow modified, or I am misunderstanding your post.

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Hey Fireball II fans,
I’m fixing up a Fireball II and noticed the lamps around the doodlebug in the corners do not light in lamp test. I’m assuming they are supposed to flash is that correct? Any chance they are related to the Auxillary Driver board AS-2518-68 or AS-2517-67? Can someone explain the purpose and function of the boards in the game?

Thanks for any info!

Yes, they should flash in self-test mode. It could be a number of issues, not limited to the Lamp Driver boards. Do they work during game play?

I'll give you a personal "for instance" with my game. Self-test works perfectly in my game, with the exception of Test 4, the sound test. The sound board has no issues in any other aspect of the game, but I can not hear the sound test with any clarity. It's there, but it is extremely low almost as if the speaker is turned down in that phase of self-test.

So if the lights work during the game in that area, it may be an issue you can live with.

But don't rule out connectors or bad lamp sockets or some other wiring issue that only tedious snooping under the playfield or in the backbox (which will drive you crazy at times) will discover.

Like chasing ghosts sometimes LOL

eta, I am not using an original MPU. I have a Callahan MPU, but don't know why the sound test would be an issue with a newer board, being that everything else seems to function flawlessly.

Jlbintn,
Thanks for the post. During game play, i have the flashing of the GI lights but not the lights involving the corners of the doodlebug mechanism. The magnet works, the ball gets tossed up and down and the switch registers the scoring. Under the playfield, the lamp is on in the far right corner (my guess in relation to one of the aux lamp driver boards) However, the lamp close to the aux lamp driver board closest to the doodlebug is not on. A new bulb did not fix it. Any ideas on how to test the aux light board and what do I expect for it to be working correctly? What drives this board originally? My guess is it should flash when the ball in the doodlebug is moving?

Your problem may lie with the connection on the mini lamp driver under the playfield. The one with the heatsink, which is AS-2518-67. That controls the lights around the doodlebug.

If you have a good meter, test the two resistors on that board in Ohms mode. R1 should read 300 ohms, within 5% high or low. R2 should read 100 ohms, within 5% high or low. Pull it off before testing, which will give you the opportunity to inspect the solder points. Don't forget the connector, either.

You say your doodlebug properly moves the captive ball properly. Does the switch (which is closed) have a diode or cap on it. I'm trying to find why mine functions, but does so in a manner I would describe as weak.

Those boards can be had relatively cheap, or you can do them yourself probably cheaper.

https://ksarcade.net/gp-as-2518-67.htm
https://ksarcade.net/gp-as-2518-68.html

One more thing. Do you have a manual for the game?

eta

Got the captive ball feature switch adjusted. It now bounces around in there like a champ!

Hello fireball II owners.
I'm trying to help someone replace their plastics. If I could get some good scanned images I can reproduce them. Is there anyone out there that would be willing to help. I could help you with any plastic reproduction you might need as well
Thank you
Bill

Grab a piece of wire with both ends stripped. Hookup one end to ground and touch the other end at:
1) Main lamp driver board, bottom right leg of SCR Q18
2) Main lamp driver board, in connector J2 pin 20 (where the Grey-Black wire is)
3) The Grey-Back wire lug at the lamp under the playfield on the left near the small aux driver board heatsink (AS-2517-67)
4) Under the playfield on the left near the small aux driver board heatsink pin 3 of the connector (where the Grey-Black wire is)

In the four tests above, when does the lamp near the AS-2517-67 leftside aux driver board come on?

Note the four lamps in the doodlebug area driven by the AS-2517-67 are 12 volt lamps (921 type), not your standard 6.3 volt lamps.

Thanks for the replies guys.
The switch for the doodlebug does not have a capacitor or diode associated with it on my game. I do have a manual and ran the ground tests mentioned above and the lamp lighted for 3 of the 4 but did not light running a wire from ground to J2 pin 20. I haven’t checked the resistors on the board AS-2518-67, next on my list if necessary. Glad to hear you got the switch working jlbintn!

You probably didn't get good contact in J2 pin 20 with your jumper wire. The test before it on SCR Q18 is upstream from that connector and since it worked, you were getting continuity through that connector pin.
During those 4 tests did the doodlebug lamps also light? Have you checked those doodlebug lamps to make sure they are ok and are 12 volt lamps?

Another thing to test is SCR Q18 itself. Grab your jumper wire and hookup one end to test point TP3 on the main lamp driver board. Touch the other end of the jumper wire on the upper middle leg of SCR Q18. The lamp at the left playfield aux driver board should light. This is a manual way of activating those small SCRs on the main lamp driver board (connecting the middle leg of the small SCRs to TP3).

Well I think I found the problem,
After running the tests listed above and checking the resistor values I pulled the As-2518-67 board and this is what it looks like underneath. Looks like a board replacement is required. In case anybody else has the problem, the resistor values were 99 Ohms at R2 and 330 Ohms at R1. The test wire lit the lamp by the biard when connecting TP3 to the up middle leg on Q18.

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Your resistors measured good. The schematics list R1 as being 330 Ohms - the parts list says it's 300 Ohms?? A board I have here has a 330 Ohm resistor.

Disconnect that AS-2518-67 board and measure the resistance between the three legs of the Q1 SCR. Also swap the meter leads around when measuring the resistance. If you get any near zero ohm resistance (short circuit) measurements it's likely faulty.

Solder a wire across that burnt trace, install some proper 12V lamps in the doodlebug area and see how you go.

Fixed the As-2518-67 flasher board by replacing the SCR at Q1 with an NTE 5643 200v 10a. Soldered a jumper wire covering the burnt trace. Lastly had to replace two of the lamp sockets by the doodlebug and installed 921 bulbs. All is working as it should, thanks for the help guys! Especially Quench!

I’m happy to be in your club ! Cabinet looks ok... I think it has wrong pop bumper caps & some drop targets but overall it’s in good shape. There’s a bunch of wine wires coming out where the coin mechs are that i’ll have to figure out.

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1st pictures I posted were from sellers home. Here’s 1 in back of truck.

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When I brought the game home the displays would light up & the game would sometimes start and keep score but now nothing happens & the displays are blank. Also from the beginning there are no lights on the playfield but the back box has lights. Any idea what’s going on? Thank you.

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nudge....

When you turn on power, how many flashes from the LED on the MPU?

Watch how the LED flashes

It flashes quick and then blinks 2 times. I’m betting that’s not good since it’s not 6 times?

First Flash:
Signals the end of the ROM test.

Second Flash:
Test the NMOS RAM (U7). There will be a bit of a delay between the first and second flash, be patient. If no flash, replace U7.

Third Flash:
Tests the CMOS RAM (U8). If no flash, replace U8 - use caution the 5101 chip is NOT diode protected and is very static sensitive!

Fourth Flash:
Tests the first PIA chip (U10). If no flash, swap U11 for U10. Note that although you may get the fourth flash, U10 may still be defective.

Fifth Flash:
Tests the second PIA chip (U11). As above. If you have already swapped U10 and U11 and don't have the fifth flash, try a new 6821 in U11. If still no success, swap once more. Worst case-replace both PIA's.

Sixth Flash:
Tests the Display Interrupt Generator. This actually tests both U11 and U12. If U11 has been replaced, and no sixth flash, replace U12.

Seventh Flash:
Tests the "Zero Crossing Detector". This tests U10 and U14 as well as the presense of +43 volts from the rectifier board. If no seventh flash, check for +43 volts before changing anything else. Fuse F4 (+43 volt) is a common failure. Unless U10 has already been swapped for a new or known good 6821, change it before U14.

Thanks vid1900 ! I will try to figure that out. I may have to watch some YouTube videos but the first thing I’m going to do is take out that leaking battery.